Placing the Stage

Using Cheat Codes

WARNING: Creating your own venue from scratch requires the use of cheat codes as indicated and might cause some damage to your save files. Before attempting this, you may want to backup your saves to a different folder.

We're going to making heavy use of cheat codes here, so let's once again go over how to use them. First, you hold CTRL and SHIFT, then press the C key. This makes the console appear at the top of the screen, and you'll type specific phrases here. When you press Enter, the cheat will go through. If it worked, the entire console will simply disappear. If the code was rejected (for example, if you misspelled something), you'll get an error message and the console will remain open. You can force the console closed by again pressing CTRL, SHIFT, and C.

The codes are not case-sensitive, so all three of these codes would work the same way:

TESTINGcheatsENABLED on

testingcheatsenabled on

teSTingCheATsENAbleD on

To make it easier to read, we'll intercapitalize the words, but know you don't have to. Also, for the off/on arguments, you can do them in three ways: off/on, false/true, or 0/1. So all three of these codes would work the same way:

testingCheatsEnabled on

testingCheatsEnabled true

testingCheatsEnabled 1

We'll be going with off/on for simplicity, but you can use any of the argument pairs that you wish.

All codes and arguments are typed without quotes in the console.

Remember that we need two cheat codes on in order for any work to be done here. The codes are, in order:

testingCheatsEnabled on

buyDebug

Planning and Placing the Stage

We name our lot "New Venue" without a description for now, then select the lot and choose to enter Build/Buy Mode. Remember that you're playing with house money here: the amount of cash displayed in the bottom-left corner of the screen is your family's account, and it will not be touched when building on a commercial lot. Feel free to go crazy with the decorations!

Now, the stage itself is the most important part of the venue, and it's significantly large (8x7 full tiles). As such, it should be the first thing you place down, and then build anything else around it. Our lot here is 60x60, which is absolutely huge... in fact, it's a little too huge. But since we've got "buyDebug" active, we can just make the venue part of it just a portion of the overall structure. The stage, however, needs to be done immediately.

All right, the first thing you have to decide is whether you want the stage elevated or not. For all intents and purposes, the stage is an 8x7 rug: you can slap it down on any type of terrain or flooring, including platforms and foundations, as long as the destination is completely flat. There is, however, one caveat: if you place the stage on an elevated surface, Sims may not be able to access it. For example, take a look below...

The checkerboard is the 8x7 stage, and the whole thing is sitting on a foundation. However, because it's on a foundation, it's completely inaccessible: Sims can't climb that high. You can sit the whole stage on a platform (the default Flying V's Coffeehouse stage is on a platform), and Sims will be able to step on and off that without problems. However, let's say you really want it on a foundation. You can do this...

But now two Sims may fight over the stairs and have a problem getting on and off. Usually AI-controlled townies won't mess around on a stage, especially if you keep it in the back of the area and away from where there's a lot of foot traffic. (For example, Sims tend to flock around the Flying V's stage because it's the fastest way between one road and the tables, and that's a bad place to put it.) But still, sometimes the Sims are stupid, and they'll need a little help. It's always best to have at least two sets of stairs leading to the stage, even if they're not used for anything else.

So we've talked about how to arrange the stage, but not how to actually buy it. Remember those cheats we entered earlier? The stage will not appear anywhere in Buy Mode without them. With them however, we get a few fun new options.

First, enter Buy Mode, then click the second vertical tab to sort the list by location. Check out the screen shot below, especially the red circle...

That ? icon represents all debug objects not normally available in Buy Mode. Click it (we'll call it the "Debug Sort" for the rest of this section), and you'll see a catalogue of items just like any other category. You want to click the last tab here, the "Miscellaneous Objects" tab (the one with three dots on it). This will list almost every object in the game that cannot normally be acquired in Buy Mode, and depending on the number of expansions you have installed and what order you installed them in, it could be a total clustered mess.

You're looking for the icon of the stage, which appears to be a yellow rectangle from an isometric view. Better still, the icon you need has a blue symbol in the corner representing the Showtime expansion pack, so if you can mentally filter out all the item icons that don't have that symbol, you'll be able to find it easier. Take a look at the screenshot here to see a blown-up version of the icon.

Once you click that, you'll have the stage, again which is essentially like a rug. We place it on our foundation and orient it camera-down (that is, the direction of the street) to place it. From there, we can paint it with any texture just like any other object in the game...

Notice how the stage markings appeared. They strangely won't appear at first; you have to flip and forth between Buy Mode and Build Mode a couple times. As long as the red X's are in the back, you've oriented the stage the correct way.